Importance Of Osmosis

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Introduction: All living organisms require the process of osmosis in order to live. When there is a semi-permeable membrane separating differing parts of an aqueous solution, the fluid will flow from the section with the higher osmotic pressure to the section with the lower osmotic pressure (HammelSchlege2005). This happens because the solute molecules diffuse toward the fluid with a lower concentration and the solute molecules drag the water through which they diffuse (HammelSchlege2005). This is important for living organisms because of modern medicine. Osmosis impacts the distribution of nutrients and the release of metabolic wastes within the cell. Therefore, when drugs are introduced into the system the nutrients are allowed to pass …show more content…
The purpose of the experiment was to determine the rate of osmosis using the dialysis tubing, and to further explain the importance of osmosis in living organisms. As the sugar water concentration increases in the dialysis tubing, and the beaker concentration consisting of tap water remains constant, the dialysis tubing will deflate over the course of the allotted time, because the process of osmosis leads the flow of water from low concentration of solutes to the high concentration of solutes in order to create a balanced, or isotonic, …show more content…
The weight change of the dialysis tubing decreased as the concentration of the sugar water in the dialysis tubing increased. The main mechanism in the experiment is osmosis. In each of the experiments, the solutions traveled from low concentrations of sugar solution to high concentrations to make the solute concentrations on the two sides of the semi-permeable membrane equal. For the control experiment (Tap/Tap) the mean weight change was approximately 1.88g. According to the hypothesis, this number should have been closer to zero, but there could have been other factors that contributed to this number. For instance, either ether the beaker, graduated cylinder, or gloves could have had some sugar concentration on them. If any of these had sugar concentration on them then the control group could have been slightly tampered with. Also, the tap water could have some outer concentration that could alter the data. The second experiment consisting of 20% concentration in the dialysis tubing and tap water in the beaker, the mean weight change was approximately +4.54g. This means the dialysis tubing gained an average of 4.54g during the course of the experiment. The second experiment, 40% concentration in the dialysis tubing and tap water in the beaker, had a NET change of +7.71g. The mean weight change was greater in the second

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